Over the past two weeks I’ve been undergoing the Global Business section of the program. Being placed at TATA Consultancy Service (TCS), one of the largest sections of the Indian TATA conglomerate, certainly has immersed me in the practices of a Global IT business – as well as taking all my free time (the reason for the sudden lack of blogging going on).

Much of the placement has taken the form of discussions and presentations, for instance on Thursday 12^th the head of security at TCS Shanghai delivered a talk on the threat of Cooperate Espionage Agents, who infiltrate businesses and sell stolen information to competitors! However, during all the presentations I have been attempting to relate what I’ve learnt to the challenge set by the CEO on the first day: how can TCS move from a top 10 IT outsourcing company to top 3 over the next 10years.

Taking stock of the achievements TCS has to its name makes it difficult to find areas of improvement with the way it operates: TCS is present in 54 countries, has revenues of $6.34billion, scores 88% on customer satisfaction ratings (over twice the industry average), and delivers 87% of projects on time (again, over twice the industry average). More over, in China, TCS has tailored its business model to the needs of the market: TCS is one of the few Wholly Foreign Owed Multinationals whose workers are 90% Chinese. TCS China’s business model of attracting local business, rather than using cheap Chinese labour as an IT development hub, has one successive business with the Chinese government, TCS China developed the software solution that runs the Chinese banking industry.

Furthermore, TCS empathises training staff both in technical and soft skills (such as communication and management); effectively, recruits can join TCS with one skill and leave with many others. However, here perhaps lies one of TCS China’s weaknesses: its high staff turnover. Although TSC has a very small turnover of staff globally (around 10% a year), in China this figure is much higher. Thus, TCS China pays for the training of new recruits (largely made up of fresh graduates) who leave before the benefit of training is utilised within TCS.

This is partially because of weaknesses in the Chinese education system and partially to do with the way business relationships work in China. The Chinese education system is fiercely competitive, focusing narrowly on the attainment of high test scores with secure places at prestigious universities. As 50% of applicant to universities don’t get places it has become imperative that Chinese students work all hours to perform in their exams: one TCS employee informs me that he used to wake at 5am and work through until about midnight, 7days a week!

More over, putting such immense pressure on children creates narrow individuals with little empathises being put on soft skills – this is one of the reasons that TCS’s training program was created. Senior TCS staff have told me that many interns are immature, not confident and lacking in good communication skills. More, the one child policy and lack of state pension ensures the towering presence of the parent is present much later in life. Of 10interns I spoke to at TCS, not one of them picked their own university course, instead their parents had chosen them based on the prospect of gaining a well paid career. The end result of such a system is that recruits have little interest in the actual companies they work for, as long as the money’s good. The TCS interns were unable to answer why they had chosen TCS to work for over the summer, only that they wanted experience to ensure they could find a job after graduation.

Further, in China clients and sales directors tend to form relationships between each other, rather than with the businesses they work for. Thus, when a well connected member of sales staff leaves and joins a competitor they can potentially take contracts and revenue sources with them.

However, this works both ways; TCS China has been able to build up a successful model on the basis that it has utilised its global presence on a grassroots level. Every pointer indicates that it will continue to be able to do this in the future.

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Over the past two weeks I’ve been undergoing the Global Business section of the program. Being placed at TATA Consultancy Service (TCS), one of the largest sections of the Indian TATA conglomerate, certainly has immersed me in the practices of a Global IT business – as well as taking all my free time (the reason for the sudden lack of blogging going on).

Much of the placement has taken the form of discussions and presentations, for instance on Thursday 12^th the head of security at TCS Shanghai delivered a talk on the threat of Cooperate Espionage Agents, who infiltrate businesses and sell stolen information to competitors! However, during all the presentations I have been attempting to relate what I’ve learnt to the challenge set by the CEO on the first day: how can TCS move from a top 10 IT outsourcing company to top 3 over the next 10years.

Taking stock of the achievements TCS has to its name makes it difficult to find areas of improvement with the way it operates: TCS is present in 54 countries, has revenues of $6.34billion, scores 88% on customer satisfaction ratings (over twice the industry average), and delivers 87% of projects on time (again, over twice the industry average). More over, in China, TCS has tailored its business model to the needs of the market: TCS is one of the few Wholly Foreign Owed Multinationals whose workers are 90% Chinese. TCS China’s business model of attracting local business, rather than using cheap Chinese labour as an IT development hub, has one successive business with the Chinese government, TCS China developed the software solution that runs the Chinese banking industry.

Furthermore, TCS empathises training staff both in technical and soft skills (such as communication and management); effectively, recruits can join TCS with one skill and leave with many others. However, here perhaps lies one of TCS China’s weaknesses: its high staff turnover. Although TSC has a very small turnover of staff globally (around 10% a year), in China this figure is much higher. Thus, TCS China pays for the training of new recruits (largely made up of fresh graduates) who leave before the benefit of training is utilised within TCS.

This is partially because of weaknesses in the Chinese education system and partially to do with the way business relationships work in China. The Chinese education system is fiercely competitive, focusing narrowly on the attainment of high test scores with secure places at prestigious universities. As 50% of applicant to universities don’t get places it has become imperative that Chinese students work all hours to perform in their exams: one TCS employee informs me that he used to wake at 5am and work through until about midnight, 7days a week!

More over, putting such immense pressure on children creates narrow individuals with little empathises being put on soft skills – this is one of the reasons that TCS’s training program was created. Senior TCS staff have told me that many interns are immature, not confident and lacking in good communication skills. More, the one child policy and lack of state pension ensures the towering presence of the parent is present much later in life. Of 10interns I spoke to at TCS, not one of them picked their own university course, instead their parents had chosen them based on the prospect of gaining a well paid career. The end result of such a system is that recruits have little interest in the actual companies they work for, as long as the money’s good. The TCS interns were unable to answer why they had chosen TCS to work for over the summer, only that they wanted experience to ensure they could find a job after graduation.

Further, in China clients and sales directors tend to form relationships between each other, rather than with the businesses they work for. Thus, when a well connected member of sales staff leaves and joins a competitor they can potentially take contracts and revenue sources with them.

However, this works both ways; TCS China has been able to build up a successful model on the basis that it has utilised its global presence on a grassroots level. Every pointer indicates that it will continue to be able to do this in the future.

After roughly two weeks, my time as a student at Beijing Normal University is drawing to a close: on Friday I will depart for Shanghai. However, I’ve realised that, as is the case with much of China, Beijing is a city of immense contrast. One such example can be drawn from the mix of culture; on one side of the scale: the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven (both examples of Old China and the histo-culture I wrote about on my previous entry), on the other trendy Karaoke bars and McDonalds (not only filled with Westerners but Chinese nationals too).

I pressure Li Weidong, my language teacher over the past two weeks, to give me his thoughts on recent developments in Chinese society. Li came to Beijing 20years ago, he’s witnessed the change that has taken place in China since then. I ask him whether traditional Chinese culture has taken a second place to economic development since he arrived: it has, he informs me. More, students have become increasingly competitive for higher education places. However, less emphasis is put on humanities such as History: Li says that very few Chinese students know what happened in during the Cultural Revolution.

Part of this, however, has come down to choice; increasingly the younger generation of Chinese nationals have chosen the western lifestyle over the traditional Chinese counterpart. Li even suggests that in modern China, beauty, power and wealth are considered to be the measure of a person. This is likely to be exacerbated in Shanghai, where companies such as Tesco, Wal-mart, and French hypermarket chain Carrefour are expanding at a greater rate than anywhere else in the world. Demand is likely to increase as greater numbers of rural workers move to cities and ultimately join the emergent middle classes.     

Shanghai is at the edge of the increasing consumerism that is developing in urban China: its one of the things I am most interested in examining. However, it’s key to remember the difference between Westernisation (McDonalds, rising obesity rates, greater consumption of resource) and Modernisation (better health care, longer lifetimes, better quality of life). That Shanghai offers practically 1^st world living standards indicates that it is affected by both. Without the wealth that large corporations brought this would not have been possible.

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After roughly two weeks, my time as a student at Beijing Normal University is drawing to a close: on Friday I will depart for Shanghai. However, I’ve realised that, as is the case with much of China, Beijing is a city of immense contrast. One such example can be drawn from the mix of culture; on one side of the scale: the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven (both examples of Old China and the histo-culture I wrote about on my previous entry), on the other trendy Karaoke bars and McDonalds (not only filled with Westerners but Chinese nationals too).

I pressure Li Weidong, my language teacher over the past two weeks, to give me his thoughts on recent developments in Chinese society. Li came to Beijing 20years ago, he’s witnessed the change that has taken place in China since then. I ask him whether traditional Chinese culture has taken a second place to economic development since he arrived: it has, he informs me. More, students have become increasingly competitive for higher education places. However, less emphasis is put on humanities such as History: Li says that very few Chinese students know what happened in during the Cultural Revolution.

Part of this, however, has come down to choice; increasingly the younger generation of Chinese nationals have chosen the western lifestyle over the traditional Chinese counterpart. Li even suggests that in modern China, beauty, power and wealth are considered to be the measure of a person. This is likely to be exacerbated in Shanghai, where companies such as Tesco, Wal-mart, and French hypermarket chain Carrefour are expanding at a greater rate than anywhere else in the world. Demand is likely to increase as greater numbers of rural workers move to cities and ultimately join the emergent middle classes.     

Shanghai is at the edge of the increasing consumerism that is developing in urban China: its one of the things I am most interested in examining. However, it’s key to remember the difference between Westernisation (McDonalds, rising obesity rates, greater consumption of resource) and Modernisation (better health care, longer lifetimes, better quality of life). That Shanghai offers practically 1^st world living standards indicates that it is affected by both. Without the wealth that large corporations brought this would not have been possible.

In China: history and culture are so interwoven that they are sometimes not distinguished between. Thus, in my lectures, Chinese paper cutters and painters have begun by introducing the fact that their art is 1000s of years old. However, this may mask the fact that Chinese culture no longer has its root in the historical but rather in the commercial. 

The Great Wall and The Forbidden City are two examples of such histo-culture (should be a word). The incredible structures both represent old China; they are works of beauty, craftsmanship and history. They are not, however, fair representations of modern Chinese culture. Since the cultural revolutions rejection of the old way Chinese society has changed drastically with less empathises on the importance of family relationships. This is reflected Zhu Wen’s work I Love Dollars, where the protagonist informs his father that his reckless behaviour is an attempt to see if he can break free of his family ties.

More over, where Chinese culture and society is linked to the past, it is also linked to the present and future. The entrance to the Forbidden City (the Gate of Heavenly Peace) lies at the end of Tiananmen Square, overlooking Mao’s mausoleum and Congress building. More over, that within the Forbidden City itself there is the Tiananmen Fast Food Restaurant indicates that what comprises much of modern china is cantered on commerce. In 2007, Rui Chenggang, a Chinese News anchor protested against the presence of a Starbucks Coffee in the forbidden city that “undermined the Forbidden City's solemnity and trampled over Chinese culture”. However, the reality is that American Brands litter the streets of Beijing.

Similarly, the Silk Market features more fake designer goods than anywhere else I have seen, with aggressive sales women determined to rip you off. However, if this is testament to undermining of Chinese culture then works like the 2008 Olympic Games site are an indicator of its possible rebirth. Like the Great Wall, the Bird’s Nest Stadium demonstrates beauty, craftsmanship and history, however, it indicates that China is at a cross roads between Americanisation and embracing its own distinct future. For the moment the Golden Ms of McDonalds in Beijing continue to be embraced by both foreigners and Chinese alike.        

“The Global economy has had a heart attack”, Sebastian Wood CMG, the British Ambassador to the Peoples Republic tells me. At a meet and greet comprising representatives of Beijing Normal University (BNU), corporate partners and British embassy staff the fellows get the opportunity to network among some high profile people including: the vice president of BNU, representatives from Tata Consultancy Service, HSBC and Mr. Wood. Late in the evening I get the chance to question Mr Wood about the future of the China and the UK’s relationship with it.

China has modernised at a pace unmatched by any other nation. Since the four modernisations unleashed ‘socialism with Chinese characteristic’ in the late 70s China’s annual GDP and GDP per capita growth rate has risen over 9%. More over, in 2005 the growth rate of trade balance shot up by 218%. At an economics lecture at BNU we were informed that since the 70s the role of state industry (that comprised 90% of companies in 1978) has been significantly reduced and now accounts for just 15% of GDP. Although the state still controls railways, civil aviation, urban water, electricity, gas, education, oil, telecoms and defence the part it plays in the economic workings of China is now much less than before the death of Mao.

Of course, this has had both environmental and social costs. This forms much of the dialogue Mr Wood and the Chinese government have: how the environmental damage can be repaired and minimised in the future. Mr Wood suggests that while Britain does not have the influence that the US does it does have the capacity to change the media’s perception of China: as in the case of Ed Milliband’s criticisms of China’s refusal to accept environment reforms at Copenhagen in 2009. Mr Woods reinforces that it’s about give and take: the west must offer its own comprehensive reforms before demanding those from China.

A balance must be maintained in the global economy and the work of the embassy is key to this, especially after the recent slow down. To maintain healthy dialogues with other powers, especially at a time when many nations are tempted to sever interrelations with each other, makes the work of the embassy essential. Mr Wood is adamant that the next few years will go down in history, its fascinating to be in China at a time when this is so. However, if the world economy is to be reform for the benefit of all global citizens than these dialogues between nations must be explored further.  

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It hits you when you walk off the plane: the sudden surge of hot air in Dubai’s 41°C temperature. This marks the rough half way point between London and Beijing where the final 40 of the global fellows will complete their journey. Dubai is of course more than an airport - even from Dubai International you can make out shape of the skyscrapers that characterise Dubai’s worldwide image as a consumer paradise. Just walking through the airport, which optimises modern design and development, it’s impossible to not notice the Rolex branded clocks; similarly, the duty free shopping is littered with all the usual western brands: Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Paul Smith, at western prices. There was an element in familiar in all this: English speaking boutique assistants and cafeteria workers serving western food. However, flying over the snow-covered Tibetan Plateau reinforced that we were all a long way from home.   

Both culturally and historically China and Britain are worlds apart. Of course, China has all the usual global retail brands: KFC has over 2,000 outlets in China and Ray Ban logos don the all the opticians down Beijing high streets. However, this is in contrast to the street vendors and shanty shops that are also present. Take, for instance, the number of street food outlets in China offering noodles, Chuan'r (like a lamb kebab) and Jian Bing (pancakes with a fried egg). More over, with the Pound at roughly 10Yuan many of these foods can be bought for under 50p.

I ask Bob (his English name), a Chinese English Student at Beijing Normal University, if this has prevented him from visiting English speaking countries abroad. He replies that if you really save, it’s possible, but very difficult. Bob is one of many English speaking Chinese students at Beijing University training to become a teacher. Originally from Shandong province, south of Beijing, Bob joins us for dinner and helps us order the best food. His willingness to help comprises part of the larger Chinese attitude present in everyone I’ve encountered so far.

Dinner, consisting of shared pots of noodles, chicken, beef and vegetables, costs just £1.50; so much food is brought out that much is just left uneaten. Going from London to Beijing is a massive culture change, the money factor forms a part of this. However, beginning language classes, visiting the Great Wall and Tian’anmen Square and Kung Fu sessions await for the next few days; this is only the beginning.